Used to brush tooth surfaces, toothpastes belong to drug medicine causing minor effects to human beings. Particularly, toothpastes are mainly used for whitening effects, bactericidal effects, interdental cleaning effects, etc. For this, toothpastes generally comprise components such as abrasives, humectants, forming agents and flavoring agents.
Halitosis occurs when unpleasant odors are exhaled in breathing. It is caused by acquired systemic diseases, or smelly substances, wherein amino enzyme breaks down amino acids from which proteins, food wastes, etc. in saliva are disassembled and generated by microorganisms in a mouth. That is, halitosis may be caused by local factors in a mouth like dental caries or periodontitis, or by physical diseases in a mouth like diabetes, liver disease, etc. However, even healthy people may have halitosis because of food wastes or germs which remain in a mouth, and especially, it often happens to the people in middle age or old people and gets worse in the morning. Particularly, Koreans prefer foods with strong smell such as garlic or Kimchi, thereby having foul breath in a mouth. Therefore, studies on effective reduction method have been actively in progress.
Further, periodontal disease is deposited by various kinds of germs and microorganisms, thereby causing gingival inflammation, bleeding, periodontal pocket formation and alveolar bone destruction and finally damaging teeth. The causes of the periodontal disease are bacteria, combined to sugar in food and strongly adhered to teeth like moss, and dental calculus, which calcifies toxic dental plaque of metabolite of the bacteria. Generally, periodontal disease has no symptoms and toothache except bleeding gums or bad breath in a mouth at times and thus, most people fails to show noticeable symptoms even though they have periodontitis. When people feel uncomfortable, it is normally hard to have dental treatment because of damaged periodontal tissue. Also, if periodontal disease begins, alveolar bones surrounding dental roots are widely destructive, and most of teeth become useless. Therefore, since damaged periodontal tissue has limited regenerative capability, it is mostly impossible to restore teeth back to their original healthy state even after treatment.
Furthermore, dentin hypersensitivity (symptoms of sensitive teeth, etc) is sensation felt when the dentin of the exposed teeth approaches to cold air or stimulated food, etc. The sensation can range from minor symptoms all the way to intense, persistent pain.
Symptoms variously appear according to the degrees of exposed dentinal tubules. A tooth consists of dental enamel over the surface of the tooth, dentin right below the dental enamel, dental pulp in nerves and blood vessels, and gum tissue protecting the tooth. However, if wrong toothbrushing, gum disease and dental caries make dental enamel damaged, or dentin is exposed by gum sinking, external stimuli are transferred to dental nerves through dentinal tubules in dentin, thereby causing short, sharp pain. Especially, the young have dentin hypersensitivity more and more these days and thus, it needs to have dental treatment in early stage.
In addition, for preventing dental caries, 0.05˜0.1 w/v % concentration of fluorine is often used in toothpastes or mouthwash. However, according to recent reports, fluorine compounds in toothpastes or mouthwash may prevent dental caries, but it is revealed that constant and repetitive use of fluorine compounds stimulates gum infection.
Therefore, toothpaste composition which may prevent dentin hypersensitivity and dental caries without fluorine has been demanded.
In accordance with such request, Korean Patent Registration nos. 10-0806050 and 10-0815397 and Korean Patent Publication no. 10-2008-0013445 have disclosed toothpaste composition whose main component is powder-shaped sodium silicate, 1.0˜2.5 μm diameter, for the total weight of toothpaste composition.
When the sodium silicate dissolves, water-soluable silicate is compounded of water, body fluid, or blood composition and responds in various forms such as Na2SiO3-5H2O, Na2SiO3-7H2O, . . . , Na2SiO3-9H2O, Na2SiO3-10H2O, . . . , Na2SiO3-15H2O, Na2SiO3-16H2O. However, it is the problem that these belong to inappropriate food additives except Na2SiO3-9H2O, Na2SiO3-10H2O, approved as food additives by U.S. Food and Drug Administration.